The Watershed

U.S. - NATO air strikes have sent anti-American sentiment high among the Pakistanis, not among Islamists alone. Source: AP

The ongoing crisis in the US-Pakistan relations gives us a chance to look at the situation from a broader perspective.

A NATO air strike on a
Pakistani border coordination center on 26th November, which annihilated 24
Pakistani soldiers, has caused extensive coverage in the media and critical
feedback from all over the globe.In a phone talk with his Pakistani
counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed that violating
other countries` sovereignty, including as part of counter-terrorism operations,
is inadmissible. In his article special to our Strategic Culture Foundation web
site, Indian foreign policy analyst M.K Bhadrakumar noted that ''the U.S.
blundered into a Pakistani trap''.

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Certainly, experts are at
liberty to assume that the U.S. army had its plans upset (and this is not for
the first time, isn`t it?), and that some notable individuals within the
American elite, esteemed Congressmen included, wanted to teach an ''obdurate''
and “ungrateful” ally an unforgettable lesson (I wonder if they are equipped
intellectually to take such crucial and far-reaching geopolitical decisions).
Political pundits may also talk about the rift between 'professionals' and
'amateurs' in the U.S. foreign policy establishment (and did not the
“noiseless” resignation of the “bipartisan” secretary of defence Robert Gates
point to the unavoidable split inside the ruling circles in America?) It is
hard to imagine now that the Bonn Conference on Afghanistan 5th December would be productive without
Pakistan`s attendance, and that a US-elaborated draft project designed to
revive the ancient "silk road"
through Central Asia, which was recently rejected during a conference in
Istanbul, will be reconsidered with enthusiasm. Nevertheless, it is up to US
and its strategic allies to ponder over these issues. And I’d like to focus on
different matters. The ongoing crisis in the US-Pakistan relations gives
us a chance to look at the situation in the ''Great Central Asia'' (a
definition given by the American strategic thinkers to the territories of South
and Central Asia, as well as Afghanistan and Iran) from a broader perspective.

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Firstly, it has been
quite long since the US-Pakistani relations entered a critical phase. Put
differently, this crisis is rooted in Washington's long-term objective to
regain its control of Pakistani foreign policy (since this country is a pivotal
state of the 'Great Central Asia' region) and Pakistan`s growing resistance to
the U.S. political pressure. The national development imperatives require that
the Islamic Republic of Pakistan today is to focus more on the diversification
of its foreign policy (including its economic ties with the outer world) and
concentrate mainly on domestic issues. The Vision 2030 strategy was adopted in
Pakistan in 2007, which outlines the following social and economic goals of
strategic importance: 1) the annual economic growth to reach 7-8% 2) the
per-capita income to rise from the current $925 to $4,000 3) the literacy rate
to be elevated to 100 percent and to ensure free access to primary and
secondary education for all citizens 4) to develop the middle class society 5)
to eliminate poverty and to provide equal distribution of economic growth
between all social classes.

Evidently, such
large-scale objectives require from Pakistan to minimize its participation in
all kinds of military activities under foreign auspices.

Secondly, U.S.
- NATO air strikes have sent anti-American sentiment high among the Pakistanis,
not among Islamists alone.The
latest military action was counterproductive from the view of the US’s
long-term interests in Pakistan, and was vehemently opposed by the youth. As
Pakistani analysts ironically say, air strikes are ‘substitutes’ for assistance
to Pakistan’s development goals amid its rapid population growth. With its
230-250-million population envisaged by 2030, Pakistan is going to be ranked
the world`s fifth most populous country. Under the speedy demographic growth,
radical Islamist views are becoming exceedingly attractive among Pakistani
young people who have nowhere to use their skills and talents. This way or
another, Chinese policy may be viewed as antithesis to that of the United
States, with Beijing developing diversified cooperation with Pakistan,
including its most troublesome regions. Both Beijing and Islamabad share the understanding
that the U.S. ‘Great Central Asia’ strategy, in its most up-to-date
manifestation of the “new silk road’’ concept, is targeted at prevention of
China and Russia from strengthening their presence in the area. This bilateral
accord might be instrumental to the encouragement of economic collaboration
between countries of the region.

Thirdly, the regional
economic institutions, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), are
taking on a brand new strategic meaning nowadays. By rejecting in Istanbul theUS-backed draft
project aimed to revive the ancient "silk road" through Central Asia, Pakistan (and it was
backed by Russia, China and Iran) clearly made its choice to boost economic
ties between the region`s states.The leaders of these states
seem to understand that reforms and development are the most effective way to
fight terror. The reforms should be aimed to enhance economic growth, reduce
unemployment and provide relatively equal and politically safe distribution of
the national income. Having closed its borders to NATO and US military supply
routes to Afghanistan, Pakistan demonstrated to America that active social and
political cooperation with the neighbors would be the best option for settling
the Afghan issue.

Fourthly, the preceding
decade in the history of Pakistan has proved the necessity to diversify the
country`s foreign policy. I have a feeling that in the past 2-3 years the
national military and civil elites have agreed that there is no viable alternative
to rapid modernization of the Pakistani society, which requires the following:

- to gradually replace
the concept of ‘ideological state’ adopted with the independence of Pakistan in
1947 with a model of ‘developmental state’, with focus made on economic and
social modernization

- to have a clear
understanding that territorial disintegration of the only Muslim nuclear state
will have a catastrophic impact on the entire world. So, development is the only way to ensure the
country`s unity and territorial integrity, which stipulates the involvement of
retarded rural areas into the process of national economic modernization. On
this stage of evolution in Pakistani society, military alliance with the US
appears absolutely useless.

Finally, the current Pakistani-US
crisis is about the existence of a lot of differences affecting geopolitical
cooperation between the two countries, and not only between them. Islamabadhas
been demonstrating convincingly that America is not strong enough to reduce
Pakistan to a state with “limited sovereignty” status. In a nutshell, we can
see with our own eyes how the world is approaching a polycentric model of
existence. That is why I tend to view the November 26 NATO bombing as a kind of
a watershed between different stages of the global political development.

Andrei Volodin is Senior Researcher with the Russian Academy of Sciences’ (RAS) Institute of World Economy and International Relations.